Dust To Dust
by Princess Pinky
Summary: Two consciousnesses alone in the universe collide when ashes meet stardust.


**A/N: **It's an unlikely idea, but somehow it just seemed right to write.

_**Dust To Dust**_

It wasn't at all how she'd expected it. Death. As a doctor and a scientist and an Atheist, she believed that once she died, that was it. Eternal blackness with no conscious thought of it. And she suspected she would have been right, too, were it not for the so-called Miracle.

At least there was no pain anymore. As a cloud of ash, her body was no longer in the physical agony of bullet holes and gaping wounds or under the duress of being cooked alive; sweating until she blistered, until her skin burst like popped grapes, until it melted off her body leaving her muscle and bone prey to the sadistic flames. But now she was disembodied; her ashes spread everywhere and nowhere, omnipresent and nothing, like a dream. It was a little like waking up with the realization that an arm or a leg had fallen asleep, in that she was consciously aware of her existence, but she couldn't connect to her body.

_You're alone._

The voice entered her bubble of existence unexpectedly. If she could have been startled, she would have jumped. Maybe to the outside eyes, there was a flurry of ashes, maybe not. In any event, she hadn't been expecting it, and it wasn't like anything she'd encountered since her reawakening in her ashen state. There was the cacophony of the voices who had burned with her. They had been so loud and unnerving at first, drowning out even the noises of the living world. White noise. Those so-called Category Ones. So alive in mind, so still in body, and so afraid in dust. But eventually, they had drained away to a dull ache.

Perhaps the breeze had carried enough of her – or them, or both – in different directions that it had allowed her the peace of her own consciousness. With it, she had wondered if those people – while trapped in their physical bodies – had been as wild within their own minds as they had been as dust. If she had still had a body, the thought would have made her keel over to vomit.

But still, this was different. This voice, a woman's, seemed calm and direct. Not like all the others, as if, somehow, she had made peace with this kind of existence. But that would seem to imply she'd been living – or not – with it for a while. However, The Miracle had only just begun, and it seemed hard to believe that even someone who had been burned alive the day The Miracle began could have made peace so quickly.

The voice spoke again: _Do you understand me?_

_Who are you?_

_Astrid. Astrid Peth. And you?_

_Vera Juarez. Dr. Juarez. At least I was._ Vera wished she could see whom she was speaking – or thinking – with, but all she could see was blackness, with occasional flurries and globes of color flitting across the black landscape like stray magic. It looked the same as it did when she was alive and would close her eyes, maybe cover them with her hands, and just see the things her mind would conjure up when she wasn't thinking of anything in particular. _Do you know what this is? How we're here? How did you get here?_

_We died_, Astrid replied. _But not in the same way. I died a long time ago. At least, I think it was a long time ago. On a boat. I was falling. Falling and falling and then…The Doctor. He tried to rescue me. That's why I'm like this, because I was trapped as an echo, in between life and death, so he scattered my atoms into the universe. I've been so alone until now…until I was moving through Earth's atmosphere and heard voices on my plane of existence. I tried to talk to them, but I couldn't. They just-_

_Babbled._ Vera interjected.

_Yes!_

_They were confused_, Vera thought.

_But then I found you. Alone. And you're speaking back to me. Did The Doctor save you too?_

_No. I burned. We all burned. And the doctors just stood by and let it happen. We're stuck between life and death too, but not like you. We have The Miracle to thank._

_The Miracle?_

_How can you not know?_ Vera questioned. The question felt like a snap, but in this strange new consciousness, she wasn't sure if inflection could be detected through thought. Or shared consciousness. Or whatever the hell this was. _No one on Earth is dying. Except Jack. I thought you said you've been watching-_

_I'm not here all the time_, Astrid replied. _I visit from time to time. I'm an explorer, a traveler. It's my dream. You say no one is dying? Death hasn't stopped across the universe. How can it just be Earth?_ _It explains why there are so many more people now though._

_You can see them?_ If Vera could have contorted her face into that of surprise, she would have.

_Of course!_

_How?_

_With my eyes_, Astrid replied, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. _But you don't have eyes_, she realized. _I see only dust. I'm dust too. That's what Mr. Copper said: stardust. But all of my atoms are intact, in a transparent form. At least that's what I see in my reflection._

_How do you travel by choice? Move around?_

_I just…think. I was brought back using a broken teleport, that's why The Doctor was able to save me as he did. So I assume that's what gives me mobility._

_Can you…can you talk to people too?_ Vera asked.

_I haven't. Not since The Doctor. But maybe. Maybe I could. Do you have someone-_

_Rex_, Vera cut in. _And Esther. Rex Matheson and Esther Drummond. Rex saw me die and I just want him to know…I want him to know-_

_That you're okay?_

_That it wasn't his fault. And Esther, we didn't really know each other. We had only just met that day, but I liked her. We might have been friends, if – if I hadn't run my mouth. If I'd only kept quiet; waited to expose them until I was on the outside again. What was I thinking?_

_Do you have any family?_ Astrid wondered.

_No._ The answer came short and quick.

_Just Esther and Rex then?_

_Yes._

_I'll find them for you. I'll give them your message._

_Make sure they know that they have to expose The Miracle at whatever cost. The world has to know the truth!_

_I will. And then I'll be back._

And then Astrid was gone. Suddenly the silence – not just from Astrid's thoughts, but from the world and life itself – seemed as awful as the burn of the bullet holes. If hell was fire and then lonesome eternity, then hell and The Miracle were the same thing.


End file.
